Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/22

 glowed through her veil. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Montgomery Green rolled along under the elm trees, bowing kindly to acquaintances, and out Poor Farm Road to the hills beyond.

"There's the haunted house, Katie."

The house was tall, gray, and silly-looking. It wore an expression of reproachful astonishment, of eyes and mouth open and protesting, like a thin dingy lady, timid and garrulous. Some of its broken windowpanes were stuffed with old quilts—the lady had put cotton in her ears against the autumn winds. It stood foolishly near the road, though all the world lay empty behind it, so their carriage nearly ran over its doorstep toes. "Goodness!" it seemed to be crying. "Oh, mercy!" with its wide crazy eyes and its open mouth. By the broken doorstep a clump of larkspur sent up blue spikes of second blooming, a promise to despair.

"I never saw such a spooky place in my life! Does anyone live there?"

"An old woman, half cracked. She spends her life cutting paper into patterns—they say the house is full of it."

"Well, I wouldn't go in there for a million dollars! Oh, Joe, isn't this fun? But we ought to have saved the money."

"Shut your eyes, Kate. Keep them shut till we go round this curve. Now!"

There was the town below them, a few white and